So, the big trade show event has come and gone!?! Your exhibit is safely packed up and off to its next destination, your sales team has headed home and you’re left with a pile of business cards and post-it notes. So, what now??
Well, hopefully going into your event you had a pre-show marketing strategy, a plan to execute during the show, AND a post-show strategy. But what exactly does marketing AFTER the show look like?
1. Compile Your Leads into Your CRM of Choice
Assuming your company uses a CRM (customer relationship management) tool, such as Salesforce or SugarCRM, one of your first priorities, once you get back to the office (and sort through the 8,987 emails you missed while at the show), should be to add all of your new contacts to that system and assign each to the appropriate department or salesperson.
Be sure to include notes about what was discussed with each contact, if orders were taken, and what type of follow-up is required. For the majority of leads, you or members of your sales team will simply be sending a personalized, follow-up email. Be sure to thank them for visiting your booth and provide answers to any questions you promised regarding your products or services. Be courteous and not pushy!
2. Nurture Your Connections Through LinkedIn
Along with email follow-ups, be sure to reach out to your new contacts through social media channels, specifically LinkedIn. Not only does this add an additional touch-point, but connecting on LinkedIn opens up the possibility for other connections of your contact to see you as a potential resource.
3. Place Any Orders You Wrote at the Show
It goes without saying, that any orders placed at the show should be entered into your fulfillment system immediately (if they weren’t during the show).
For those that placed orders, a simple email or personalized “thank you” letter should be all that’s necessary.
4. Blog and Post to Social Media Channels About the Event
By now your company should surely have a content strategy (you do have a content strategy right?). And blogging should be a core component of that strategy!
After the event, be sure to post articles to recap the events, speakers and demonstrations that took place at the show. And of course, highlight what your company was up to at the event, and what your key announcements & contributions were.
Remember, for everyone that made it to the show, there were probably just as many folks that had other business to attend to and couldn’t be there. Give these people a sense of what took place at the show, what the key takeaways were, and you’ll find yourself gaining additional exposure for your efforts.
Of course, once you write your blog post(s) – be sure to share each across your social media channels including Facebook, Twitter, Google+ & LinkedIn. If you captured any video (via ShowCAST??), even better! Leverage a service like YouTube or Vimeo to post and share your video content!
5. Utilize the Trade Show Attendee List
As a show exhibitor, you typically have access to both an exhibitors list as well as an attendee list (either free or paid). Take advantage of these lists and either send letters, direct mail or email (depending on list stipulations you may not have permission to bulk email) to the segments of attendees that make sense.
Feel free to make a special “post-show offer” to ONLY those who attended the trade show event.
6. Marketing Automation
If your company uses a marketing automation system, which is tied to your website, be sure to load the contacts you made into that system (if it’s not directly tied to your CRM).
This will help you determine if those you met at the show are visiting your website and specifically what they are doing when they get there. In addition, any marketing automation tool such as Act-On, HubSpot, or SharpSpring will include lead scoring and workflow management features – which will help you not only gauge the quality of the leads that reach your site but also add those leads to automated marketing tasks such as drip campaigns!
Have suggestions for other marketing tasks to perform after your trade show event? We’d love to hear your ideas! And if you’d like our talented team at ColorCraft to help make your trade show marketing efforts a BIGGER success, let us know – we’d love to help!!
